S c r i v e n e r

Month: October 2015

This week, I had the distinct pleasure of appearing on The Outer Dark podcast in order to discuss my annual dark fiction anthology, Nightscript, as well as talk a bit about my own writing. The show’s creator and host, Scott Nicolay (whose debut collection, Ana Kai Tangata, comes highly recommended), goes above and beyond the call of duty each and every week, profiling writers, editors, publishers, artists, and promotors of weird fiction.

The Yellow Booke makes its second annual autumnal appearance today, featuring tales by a host of strange scriveners, including yours truly. My entry, “The Dust Child,” is a very personal piece told from the point-of-view of a young boy coming to terms with his mother’s illness. This particular volume also contains numerous chiaroscuro illustrations by Michael Kellermeyer (the talented wizard behind the curtain of Oldstyle Tales), and is currently available on Amazon or for free at the publisher’s website.

Today marks the official release-date of Nightscript, and I must say that I am overjoyed (and a bit relieved) to finally be able to craft this entry. When I originally announced, back in January, that I was planning to publish an anthology devoted to “strange stories,” I was amazed by the positive response. I can only hope that now, ten months later, this interest still holds. Now that the journal has become a reality, it’s hard to imagine that I nearly shelved the idea, thinking the project would take away from my own writing and (even more importantly) family life. But the exact opposite occurred. During the stages of fashioning the anthology, I found myself in the midst of various (and most welcome) surges of creativity, and my kids were delighted to see how a book comes together. I can only hope that I have created an exciting new venue which will thrive (in the form of numerous subsequent volumes) for many years to come. And now, good reader, it’s time to take the plunge. The nøkk awaits…